


but cause he really knows me (which is more than they can say)

by archers_and_spies



Series: you don't need to save me, but would you run away with me? [1]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Professors, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Art, Assassination, Bisexual Steve Rogers, M/M, Past Brainwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29858856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archers_and_spies/pseuds/archers_and_spies
Summary: Somewhere in a New York City war museum hangs a painting.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter/Maria Hill
Series: you don't need to save me, but would you run away with me? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195256
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	but cause he really knows me (which is more than they can say)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stvckys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stvckys/gifts).



> hello everyone and especially ariel!! im so sorry i couldnt get this out in time for your birthday but on that day i promised you more to come and since i know how much you love these two, today you are finally getting the more that has come. once again i apologise for being extremely late and i hope you enjoy it and the rest of your day too :) special thanks to ashlea for providing the blueprint of the intro aka i moved a few words around and called it a day. if you're an FOT (friend of talya) be sure to stick around and read the end notes for something important!

Somewhere in a New York City war museum hangs a painting.

 _1945_ , reads the handwriting in pencil on the back of the small white canvas. _Buck, out to war._ The painting is signed _Rebecca Barnes_ and the silhouette of a saluting sergeant can be made out against the blurry background of a blizzard and what looks like a train running on rails higher up than the Empire State Building. James Barnes tells everyone Buck was his uncle and Rebecca his mother; makes his way into the ranks of the museum with this painting, a few spoken stories, a long-lost soulmark and a rare kind of grief in his eyes.

What the oil and canvas won’t tell anyone is how the soldier fell, how he was brought back from the dead and twisted into something unrecognisable. It won’t ever tell the hardships he’d gone through on his own, fighting battles he didn’t understand because he didn’t even understand himself anymore, spending nights upon nights fearing the violence and ruthlessness they’d programmed into his bones.

Nobody captured the moment he broke free. If they did, they would fold gold into the paint, encase him in a halo, because though it was far from holy it was truly, achingly remarkable. It had taken him years—decades—of heartache and healing for the soldier to find a place that wasn’t exactly home, but felt just the right amount like it.

Yet somehow he does, and he hangs the painting in a museum with the help of his prosthetic arm. Funnily enough, he looks around and doesn’t just see the blood and suffering and loss. He sees folks wandering around, young and old, catches whispers of _that’s your grandfather_ and _it must’ve been so terrible_ and _Mom, you’re not allowed to take pictures_. People with the same amount of appreciation for the past as him. His people.

James Barnes fits right into the 21st century.

**————**

_B.B._ —this is what Steve Rogers’ soulmark says, printed right on his outer forearm, and paired with how small and scrawny he’d been throughout childhood, he’d been relentlessly teased for it. It doesn’t matter, though, he tells himself, because one day he’ll meet his soulmate, and when have soulmates ever not been worth it all?

Steve’s daily life goes like clockwork, even though he’d signed up for art precisely to experience the opposite. He’d really thought he’d have his life together by now, maybe with a soulmate and a dog that could go get coffee with him at seven-thirty in the morning. Steve is twenty-nine and he’d been very, very wrong; and so every day he goes into the same coffee shop, orders the same Iced Americano and walks the same distance to the college he teaches at. Alone.

Abstract art—that’s what they’ve been doing this semester, what they’ve _been_ doing. Steve doesn’t hate it, of course he doesn’t. How could he, when his students never fail to turn in entire worlds shaded and coloured both in and out of the lines on mere pieces of paper?

But then again, maybe that’s the issue. Every now and then it occurs to him that his students are way too good for him to even be qualified to teach them. He’s always been more of a _view_ and _people_ person, finds comfort in the rawness of things, in art. Especially in art.

Technically speaking, one in the afternoon is lunchtime, but to Steve it’s a self pity-party. He sighs once while looking at the gorgeous mix of watercolours on—he flips the page to read the name—Kimberly’s artwork, gives up on trying to decipher it, and reaches for her attached explanation instead.

“You look miserable,” comes a voice from the doorway, and Steve looks up to find Natasha dressed in a checkered coat, tilting her head.

“Well, I’d say some things in life are much more complicated than just pressing the Translate button on your phone, Professor Romanoff,” he teases.

“How dare you,” Natasha mock-gasps and walks up to his desk. She carefully moves a cup of paintbrushes aside, checks if there are any fresh stains, then sits on the corner of his desk. “Languages _is_ an art, you know, Steve.”

“I know,” he sighs again. “At least you’re good at what you do. The kids probably love you.”

Unexpectedly, she snorts. “Please. I yelled at this boy _once_ and they haven’t stopped calling me the Black Widow ever since.”

“What are you doing here, Nat?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be out at lunch?”

“…Yes, actually.” She glances over her shoulder and Steve follows the direction. Through the frosted glass he makes out the side profile of someone tall, holding the leash of a dog. Barton. “But, uh, Clint and I were thinking of a lunch friend-date because Kate got us these tickets to a nearby museum that expire this week, but then she had to cancel because she had her own date with _her_ girlfriend, and—”

“Now you’ve got an extra ticket and want me to come with,” Steve finishes for her. “Correction: you want me to be your personal third-wheel.”

Natasha scoffs. “That isn’t—” she exhales exasperatedly, deciding not to dwell on this. “Rogers, come on. I know you’ve been bored out of your mind the past month. You said you’ve always liked war?”

This piques Steve’s interest a little. “I don’t _like_ war. I’m interested in it; I like the art it inspires.”

“Good.” Natasha smiles her signature half-smile and slides herself off his desk. She starts walking towards the door, pausing right before exiting the classroom and turning her head. “Well? You coming?”

Steve sighs and shakes his head, putting Kimberly’s artwork aside and standing from his chair. “Lead the way,” he tells Natasha and she smirks, small but triumphant.

**————**

Lunch is quick, at one of many outdoor wooden tables beside a hot-dog stall. Steve wolfs his food down. “We’re on a clock,” he explains, but Clint and Natasha just look at him in pity.

“Relax, man,” Clint says, which is rich coming from him; he’s got the rest of his day off. “You’ve still got, like, an hour left.” Natasha takes his last fry and he lets her.

“Okay,” says Steve, dusting off his hands. “Are we—are we going to go in now, or—”

“Oh, no, you go on ahead,” Natasha says, surprising him, then nods towards Lucky sitting on the floor beside their bench. “Pets aren’t allowed inside.”

“What?” he frowns. “That’s—well, okay, you two can go in then, and I’ll watch Lucky.”

“Steve,” Natasha says unimpressed, looking at him like he’s being dense, the same time Clint says, “That’s very sweet, but you’ve been eyeing the museum building for the entire half-hour we’ve been here.”

“Besides, there are loads of great outdoor exhibitions here,” says Natasha, reaching down to ruffle Lucky’s fur. “We can take this little guy on a walk; God knows he’s been waiting for one all morning. Staying in the carrier for the subway ride must’ve already been hard enough.”

Clint watches from beside her and gives her a tiny smile when she’s not looking. Steve realises with an internal groan he’s already being the third wheel, and they’re not even in the goddamn museum yet.

“Okay, fine,” he relents. “We’ll meet back out here in forty-five minutes, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll go back to campus with you,” Natasha says. “C’mon, Clint, I think I saw a garden somewhere Lucky would love…”

Steve watches them scuffle out of their bench and leave shoulder-to-shoulder. He stands and makes his way alone across the lawn to the indoors museum.

Steve hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t like war. Inside the museum, pictures and words about death, destruction and terror fill his whole body with a strange combination of sadness and anger, until he starts wanting to personally punch everyone who’d taken part in the killing, no matter where they were from. Finally, finally, he reaches the doorway to an art gallery.

 _World War II on Canvas._ Down in one week, just like it had said on Natasha’s tickets, like the Universe dangling this in front of his nose. _This is what you want, right? Come get it, before it’s too late._

Steve doesn’t even realise he’s been staring at the words until someone standing at the door asks him, “How you doing, Sir? You wanna come in?”

Steve lowers his gaze from the words to answer the docent, who has dark hair, a striking jawline and an even more striking pair of blue eyes. “Yeah,” he manages, and inwardly tells himself to stop staring before it becomes weird.

He smiles and Steve’s stomach does a sudden flip. “Well, you’re in luck. Seems like you get to have me showing you around.” He rips off a part of Steve’s ticket swiftly and scans the barcode with a _beep_.

“Lucky me,” Steve echoes, friendly. He follows him into the gallery, and instantly his breath is taken away, by colours both bright and dull, individual strokes of paint, enormous tanks and tiny helmets.

“Wow,” he breathes. “This is… wow.”

“It’s pretty awesome, huh?” the docent—James, according to his name tag pinned to his muted red long-sleeved shirt—says. “The other parts of this museum are just so disturbingly… _real_ , but somehow there’s this strange sense of peacefulness in the art.”

“Like everything’s moving, but staying still all at once,” agrees Steve, looking at James with curiosity. “Yeah. Exactly.”

At this time of day, the gallery’s empty except for the both of them. Steve mentally circles back to what he said and thinks it might be what’s happening right here, can hear his heart pounding even though he’s not moving a muscle. The sensation is strange; he’s never felt this kind of magnetic _pull_ before, but he’d met James not three minutes ago. Maybe it’s just the art, he theorises. Steve’s always felt attracted to good art. That’s what made him start teaching.

James guides him around the white walls, letting Steve stop and admire a particular piece of art whenever he feels like it. His head swims, full of imagery and inspiration, and he’s never drawn war before but this, this is something he’d definitely like to try.

“You’re different,” James notes, as if it’s a decision he’s just made.

“Yeah?” Steve says again. Between wall after wall filled with defeats and victories and James, he’s having trouble coming up with words to say. Immediately, his mind reels backwards, because _how did he just put_ James _on the same level as art this magnificent?_

“Yeah,” James says. “The way you’re looking around… the way you’re looking right _into_ the art.”

Steve chuckles, raising his hands to the level of his waist in pretend surrender. “You got me. I’m a professor.”

James’ eyebrows go up, impressed. “An Art professor?”

“Not an exceptional one,” he admits.

“Oh, I don’t believe that for one second,” says James. “You’re just being humble. You know, you seem like the kind of person who does everything right, does everything selfless, and then goes back and blames yourself for not doing enough, or in this case, not doing _exceptional_.”

“Funny,” remarks Steve, to throw James off from realising how right he’d been and how spooked he himself is. “That’s what my friends say.”

“Everyone around here tells me I’m a good judge of character,” James says, then a smile tugs on his mouth. “You’re a good person, Steve.”

“I… try,” says Steve, his gaze landing back on one of the paintings to distract himself from James’ knowing eyes. It’s not uncomfortable, but he’s never had anyone read him this accurately. Except for Natasha, but she’s _Natasha_. And James is…

James is impressionable, but all he’s ever wanted is to fit in somewhere that he feels safe in; Steve can tell. He’s gone through much too, and it’s not just the prosthetic arm Steve can see a little of that makes him think that, but also the kindness in his eyes. For something like that to be this soft, James has to have been hardened in the past. Impossibly hardened.

… But he also seems like a person who isn’t easy to read. So how in the hell did Steve just do that?

He almost feels like he’s intruding, and so he tries to focus even harder on the art around him, tries to get lost in it like he had when he’d first stepped in, but somehow James is getting more and more distracting, even when he’s not saying anything.

Oh, yeah, that’s weird too. Isn’t he supposed to be talking? Steve looks back at him, and finds him staring right back like he’s seeing a ghost. But it’s not fear, exactly, more like… subtle surprise. Like finding something you never, ever thought you would.

And then hurried footsteps come from down the hall, and Steve turns and Bucky shifts his stare to somewhere behind Steve, and the moment’s ruined, by none other than Natasha.

“Of course,” she says, not out of breath even though it looks like she ran here. “World War Two on Canvas, Steve, you are so predictable—”

Natasha’s eyes meet James’ where he’s standing behind Steve, and something changes. Her eyes widen and without looking Steve can feel a jolt coursing through James too, but it’s over within two seconds, and Natasha picks up right where she left off, albeit at a slower pace.

“It’s been over forty-five minutes and Clint left ten minutes ago. We’re gonna be late to class,” she says, a new kind of _something_ in her voice like she’s not letting the full picture show. It’s quite odd; Steve’s rarely seen her shaken, apart from the time Clint got caught in the crossfire of a robbery.

His mind catches up with what she just said. “It can’t have been—” he starts, but he takes his phone out and the time glares up at him, along with four missed calls from Natasha. She raises an unimpressed eyebrow and Steve himself is shocked he lost so much time, not to mention sense, between the exhibits and the gallery.

“I’m sorry; I’ve got to go,” he explains to James, who looks like he’s seen another, scarier ghost. “But I’ll find the time to come back, I promise.”

“Oh, no, yeah, of course,” James says. “I’d love that. I’m James, by the way, James Barnes.”

James Barnes. _J.B._ , not _B.B._ Steve mentally scolds himself for even letting himself think that thought and his hand subconsciously twitches to touch where his soulmark is, even though it’s covered by his shirt sleeve.

“I’m Steve Rogers, and this is one of my best friends, Nat,” he introduces instead, because he’s got no idea what just went on but it seemed like a wordless conversation that lasted two seconds. That’s impossible, though, right? They’ve never met each other. They don’t _know_ each other. “We, uh, teach at the same college.”

“Nice to meet you, James,” Natasha says, and she holds out her left arm.

Slowly and not breaking eye contact, James shakes her hand with his prosthetic one. “Nice to meet you too, Natasha.”

Natasha nods once and steps back. She turns to leave and it takes Steve a few seconds to realise she wants him to follow her.

“Bye,” he says to James who offers a smile, and jogs to catch up with Natasha.

“What was that?” she asks incredulously once they’re out of the gallery without stopping her stride. “How did you lose track of time _that_ bad, and don’t tell me it wasn’t related to James.”

“That’s not even a question,” Steve says defensively.

“But _that_ was an answer,” Natasha says. “Jesus, Rogers, you see an attractive brunet who looks like they could shoot a gun with incredible precision, and all rational thought goes out the window.”

“What?” Steve says, because… what? “Wait.” He stops before they enter the subway station. “Nat, wait.”

“What?” She stands a few paces in front of him.

“He called you Natasha. James called you Natasha.”

“And?” she asks. “Steve, come on, we’re going to be late.”

“I never told him your full name,” says Steve.

“Sure you did,” Natasha says. “You said, _this is one of my best friends, Natasha_ , and he said, _nice to meet you, Natasha._ All the while internally, I was offended that you said _one of_. Who else is your best friend?”

“Are you sure?” Steve says, uncertain. “I don’t know. Everything that happened in that museum just seemed so… uncanny. Not in an explicitly bad way, though.”

“Are you feeling okay? Did you take your temperature this morning?” Natasha asks, and Steve rolls his eyes. He doesn’t feel sick, per se, but everything around him does feel feverish, like the past two hours were but a dream. The jolt of the subway carriage when it reaches their station startles him back to reality, and he goes through two more insufferable hours of suppressing thoughts of James before class is over and he goes home.

That night, Steve puts aside all work-related tasks and sits down on the edge of his bed with a pencil in his hand and his sketchbook on his lap. He draws war, draws soldiers on the battlefield and in their graves, draws someone with a missing arm and hints of stubble on his chin. When he’s done, his lights are on at one in the morning and he knows he’s going to wake up sleep-deprived.

He also knows that it’s worth it.

**————**

Steve slips out during lunch again and buys a ticket at the gates, because of course he does. It’s more than the museum at this point, more than the art, but he just can’t put a finger on what _it_ even is. He walks past all the exhibits he’d admired yesterday and heads straight for the gallery. No time to lose.

James is there. Of course, there’s no reason James shouldn’t be there, but. James is there, and Steve’s stomach does a pleasant drop. He likes it, even, thinks it’s the kind of drug he could get addicted to.

James looks up and breaks into a surprised smile. _I did that_ , Steve thinks, and yesterday the world was in slow-motion, like they were stuck in some gooey jelly, but here and now everything is moving fast as the shutter of a camera. _I made him smile._

“Steve,” says James. “I didn’t expect you to be back so soon, but… I’m glad.”

“Me too,” Steve says, heart fluttering when he hands him his ticket and their fingers brush. “I just… couldn’t get enough, I guess.”

“Good,” smiles James. “That means I’m doing my job right.” He turns to lead Steve inside again, and he follows him like the minute hand after the hour hand on a clock.

“Guess we’re picking up right where we left off yesterday,” James says, and Steve thinks, _please keep talking, keep talking or I’m going to lose it._ “And this one features a decapitated horse. It’s made plenty of kids cry.”

“You’d think the people dying would have done it,” jokes Steve and James lets out a chuckle, and _oh_ , maybe this is the kind of horror parents warn their kids about, fooling around with people whose initials aren’t on your skin.

Except this isn’t fooling around. It’s soft, light laughs and looks they pretend not to notice; it’s the gentle glare of museum spotlights; it’s everything packed into decorated gold frames. James shows him a painting done by his mother and Steve spends extra long looking at it, because he swears he can see a bit of James in his uncle’s posture, the way they both hold themselves like they’re expecting a bomb to drop on their heads at any given moment. He supposes that might have unfortunately been the actual case for James’ uncle Buck.

There’s a velvet rope and an exit sign when they reach the end, and Steve is shocked to find that he doesn’t really remember anything from it, only a pair of eyes he could sink into and a husky, soft voice enveloping the empty space around them.

Maybe it’s his imagination, but James looks just as oddly disappointed as he feels. “Well. We made it, I guess,” he says, and Steve nods slowly.

“I guess,” he echoes, because silence with James is a new kind of vulnerability he can’t afford, the same way his insides turn to jelly when he fixes him with his gaze.

“Maybe, uh… take a look around the museum? That is, if you’ve still got time to spare, I mean. I’d accompany you, but I gotta go have lunch.”

“You haven’t had lunch yet?” Concern shoots through Steve like a winding vine, but then he searches through his own memory and remembers: “Me neither. Shit. Sorry,” he apologises. He’s not usually one for profanity.

“Ah, whatever,” James waves it off. “I usually go earlier, but yesterday I just… I don’t know, I felt some kind of _thing_ compelling me to stay.”

_And thank God you did, James, you’re like an angel. A halo could materialise on top of your head right this second, and I wouldn’t even be surprised._

“And today?” he doesn’t know why he asks it, and proceeds to even regret it a little when he changes the subject.

James laughs, but then stops. Steve’s instantly embarrassed by the sudden urge to fucking _whine_ , _keep laughing, I know I met you yesterday but your laugh spurs me on._ And then James asks, “Wait, why don’t you just come have lunch with me?”

“Really?” asks Steve, because he’s been treating their time together as limited, as some kind of luxury, but in the end it doesn’t matter how hard it is to believe: James is only human. This isn’t some kind of forbidden thing, this is the modern, open-minded world. He can have lunch with James just because he wants to, and so he answers, “I’d love to.”

“None of that romantic shit, though, Rogers,” he throws over his shoulder as he leads him out a back door of the museum. “I’ve only got twenty. Minutes _and_ dollars.”

Steve makes a mental note to point out that twenty bucks isn’t really that little, but he stays silent the whole time James orders tacos from a food truck for them both and gets his order right; and by the time he holds it out to him with a generous smile, all the words he’d been planning to say evaporate in his throat.

They sit down under a tree in a park outside the museum, watching the parents on holiday with their little kids and the dog-walkers with their little dogs. This is usually Steve’s cue to try and make conversation, but he really doesn’t know that much about James’ life, and anyway, what kind of questions do you even ask a museum art gallery docent?

“Thanks for coming out here with me,” James says. “I don’t really got… any friends.”

“Is that what we are?” Steve teases. “Anyway, I couldn’t see it. You not having friends, I mean, you’re just too… nice.”

Nice? _Nice? What the fuck, Rogers?_

“Thanks?” says James. “And I’d love to be friends, Steve. Whatever you want.”

“Of course,” he replies, soft but James hears it; Steve just knows it. The wave of pure emotion that washes over him strikes him till he’s left reeling even though he’s still sitting on the same spot of grass: this feels right, _too_ right, so right it’s downright unsettling. It feels like giving in to the pull he’s been feeling since yesterday, like when you know you’re living through a precious moment and trying to cherish it before it passes.

They decide to play a game of twenty questions, one for each minute James has to spare. James tells him about the white cat he’d adopted a few years back and Steve tells him how he’d watched his mother wither and die one hard winter. Unprompted. He feels his brain going haywire, like it gets even more messed up every second he spends with James, but he looks him in the eye and says _I’m sorry_ with his metal prosthetic hand on top of his, and Steve can’t explain it but he’s _different_ and he knows he’s being an idiot right now but he can’t help it, not when James’ eyes are as blue as they are.

“My parents… they’re not around either,” he tells Steve, and the rush of guilt he has no right feeling fills him up until he understands why James needed to tell him he was sorry. “But it’s been a long time; longer than you would know.”

“Everyone tells me I’m an old soul,” says Steve. “Like how I look at pictures of Brooklyn back in the 40’s, and something tells me I should’ve been born there.”

James looks at him, long and curious. “In another world, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Steve agrees and means it. “You should see my sketchbooks, though. Filled to the brim with views.”

“I’d love to see your art,” James says with a sincere frown. “Bet it’s authentic and… beautiful.”

“Nah, you’re too kind.” Steve lets out a small laugh, ducking his head to hide his blush. There’s no answer, but too used to the comfortable, safe silence, it takes him a few seconds to realise their conversation’s been disrupted.

“Shit.” James is looking at his phone’s default lock screen. “Shit, I’m late.”

 _But we’ve only gotten through eight questions_ , Steve wants to say. It’s not exactly socially acceptable, though, so he scrambles for some other thing to say while James stands. In the end, he doesn’t get anything out before James does.

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” he says, rushed. “Look, come back tomorrow, and we can continue, hmm?”

“Oh,” says Steve, taken aback.

James freezes, then adds, “or not. Only if you want to. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have assumed—”

“No, it’s okay,” he assures. “I do want to. Sorry for keeping you out so long.”

“That’s alright,” James says. “I enjoyed it.”

Steve smiles, relieved. “As did I. I’ll be back.”

He watches James run awkwardly back towards the back door and stays on the lawn for a few more minutes, just because the overhead sun reminds him of the warmth that comes with James. _I’ll be back_ , he repeats to himself, and when he gets up to leave he’s sucked back into the cycle of lessons and work and alarms and coffee, but at least he’s got the mantra to get him through.

**————**

Except the next day at lunch, James isn’t there at the gallery door. Steve stares at the unripped ticket in his hands and back up at the gallery title, as if he’d suddenly realise he was in the wrong place. But no, it’s the same gallery, same white walls, just no one to admit him in. He looks around a last time just in case James is waiting somewhere else, then steps into the gallery on his own.

He’s not expecting to see yellow tape surrounding where James’ mother’s painting should be hanging, not expecting to see James standing like he’s been hit, not expecting to see three figures in uniform questioning him with actual notepads and shit. He catches James’ eye, asks a silent but urgent question, and he can practically hear his answer— _go, Steve, just leave, get out of here_ —

One of the officers follows James’ gaze and turns. “Sir, you shouldn’t be here—” he starts, then stops.

“Wilson?” Steve asks disbelievingly.

“Rogers,” Sam croaks. “That you?”

“It is,” Steve confirms. “Oh, my God, man, it is so good to see you.” He pulls Sam in for a brief hug, and catches an eye-roll from one of the two female officers, one blonde and one brunette.

“We were… friends. In college,” Sam explains to his colleagues. “C’mon, Carter, you don’t have to rain on everyone’s parade.”

“I’m only here because Maria’s here,” Carter, the blonde, rolls her eyes again. “But if you’re done with your sappy reunion, we’re questioning a suspect here.”

“Wait, wait. Suspect?” Steve asks.

“A painting disappeared here yesterday,” Maria says, clipped. “We have reason to believe Mr Barnes had to do with it. Now, if you don’t mind, official police work is being conducted—”

“I told you, it was my ma’s painting,” says James, exasperated and quiet, and Steve gets the sudden urge to just hold him in his arms for comfort. “I was the one who donated it to the museum. Why would I steal it?”

“Doesn’t the museum have security footage? Couldn’t you just check that?” Steve asks.

“We did,” answers Carter. “He entered the gallery with a blond man—I’m starting to think that was you—and when he came back out, he was alone. Who—who even are you, anyway? What were you doing?”

“Steve Rogers, professor,” he says by way of introduction, and Maria notes it down. “Ma’am.”

“Dude,” Sam says, awed. “No way.”

Steve allows a chuckle. “Yeah.”

“Congratulations,” says Sam. “How long?”

“Around two years,” he smiles.

“Art?”

“Art, yeah, of _course_ art.”

Maria puffs a breath of air. “Well, that explains what he was doing in the gallery. I suppose it was work-related? You wanted to do some research?”

“No, I,” Steve says. “I was here to see the art.”

“Right,” says Maria. “Mind giving us a moment, gentlemen?”

Steve and James walk away together and Sam follows until Maria calls, “not you, Sam,” and he laughs, embarrassed.

“Of course. We’ll catch up later,” he tells Steve, then runs back where Maria and Carter are discussing together. Steve and James find a close corner, and James immediately starts apologising.

“God, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you something, done something before you walked in. Now you’re all dragged into this mess because of me, and I’m just so sorry—”

“Hey, James. Stop,” Steve says, and watches his face show a little fear. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Am I—” he pauses. “Well, I’ve been much worse.”

“And did you steal the painting?” Steve asks.

“No.”

“Okay,” he exhales. “Then don’t worry.”

James sighs. “God, I—I wish. They’re suspending me, Steve, it’s bad. I won’t be able to pay my _rent_ , Jesus—”

“James,” Steve says, shocked. “Hey, if you need a place to crash at, my apartment’s always available,” he offers before realising it.

James’ eyebrows go up. “Really?”

“Of course,” Steve assures. “Sure, solitude is nice in general, but it gets a little lonely sometimes. You might have to sleep on the couch, though.”

“I’d be fine with that,” he says quickly. “ _Really?_ I mean, you barely know me.”

Steve shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter. We’ve gotta look out for each other; that’s the purpose of life.”

“You might be the most _good_ person I have ever met,” James says with something behind his eyes. Steve finds himself being drawn in again, until James speaks again. “They might make me stay behind a little longer, but text me the address, if that’s okay?”

“Of course,” Steve replies breezily. He hands over his phone, and when James hands it back after typing in his number, their fingertips brush and it feels like fire in the middle of the wildest winter, like coming home from war.

“You,” James starts, then stops and swallows. “Thank you.”

**————**

James shows up at Steve’s door after work is over with nothing more than a duffle bag’s worth of clothes and belongings. That’s okay; Steve doesn’t mind sharing everything else. He doesn’t mind anything when it comes to James, really.

“So this is your art,” James says a little breathlessly, flipping through one of his sketchbooks.

“A letdown, I know,” Steve says, but then James looks up with a burning intensity.

“A letdown?” James says in disbelief. “Rogers, I’ve worked in the museum for years, and this is some of the most impressive shit I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh,” says Steve, pleasantly surprised. “Thank you.”

“I mean, I expected this,” he continues, “but you’re, like, _good_ good. This is…” he hands back the sketchbook. “The emotion… wow.”

Steve smiles. He himself doesn’t put this amount of effort or thought into his casual sketches, and it feels nice to be held on a pedestal the way James does. No empty words or congratulations, just _realness_. He can feel it, the way he’s always honest with him. “I’m flattered.”

Living with James comes easy. As does everything else, except the part where it’s practically burning Steve up inside that he can’t open his heart up and project it onto a screen as something to show James, a slideshow of his rare smiles and touches. In the mornings he usually has to leave before James wakes and Steve catches himself staring at his sleeping figure at least twice, then forcing himself to turn away.

But the nights are when it gets real. Even just the absence of daylight makes Steve feel like he’d get away with anything, that if he steals longer looks at James and bumps his shoulder against his intentionally, no one would know. And he supposes it’s right, too; selfish, but right. Clint or Natasha or Sam are never going to know about this new kind of fire he’s never felt before.

And they’re never going to know if they sit on the couch with a blanket over their laps together to watch a movie on Friday night, _late_ Friday night, the kind of late Steve wouldn’t usually stay up till, probably couldn’t; but bending his personal rules for James isn’t anything new now. It’s been less than a week, but it feels like he’s been doing it for years.

“I’ll get the ice cream,” announces James, standing and walking to the open kitchen.

“We have ice cream?” Steve asks even as James opens the fridge.

“Yeah, got some from the grocery store this afternoon—damn metal arm,” he curses, pulling his arm away from the fridge with force. “Stop laughing, Rogers.”

“I’m not laughing,” denies Steve, stifling a smile.

“You try living life being a walking magnet for a day.” James throws the tub of ice cream unceremoniously onto Steve’s blanket-covered lap. “Bathroom break. Decide on a movie; you can start without me. The logos are, like, three minutes long nowadays, anyway.”

Everything about James seems so inexplicably old-fashioned—Steve’s only ever seen him use his phone once—that he wonders if he even knows about Netflix. He puts on a random rom-com, because it’s almost always either that or action, and James sees enough blood and death at his job anyway. He waits the logos out, but even after that James is nowhere to be seen in the living room.

It’s alright, Steve tells himself. The first ten minutes or so are probably only going to be an exposition dump anyway. And so he waits and waits, barely paying attention to the actual movie. The apartment feels soundless except for the noise of the movie, and after a few minutes Steve calls out, “James?”

No response.

 _Alright. Be rational._ Steve slowly gets up from his seat on the couch and sets off to the bathroom. The door is open and the room is empty.

Steve eventually finds him in the small spare room he’d modeled into a study with Natasha’s help. James’ hands hold a bigger sketchbook, and just by looking at his face Steve’s stomach sinks with dread, knowing what he’s found.

“Steve,” he says, eyes glazed over. “Is this who I think it is?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, risking everything he’s built carefully. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but you were just—”

“It’s beautiful,” James interrupts decisively, stuffs the sketchbook into Steve’s hands, and walks back out towards the living room. The movie plays on the TV screen, forgotten. Steve looks down and finds his sketchbook open on a page of James in Army uniform, saluting with a crooked smile. It’s not the only page with James’ face on it, Steve knows, remembers it in the way the side of his right hand’s been smudged with the grey of graphite for a few days now.

“You’re not mad?” Steve asks after him, because even if he isn’t, he’s acting closed off for some reason.

James shrugs. “How could I be?”

“But I—” Steve says. “I overstepped; that was on me.”

“I was right,” says James, and Steve frowns in confusion until he explains. “Remember what I said the first time we met?”

 _Of course I do. I know I’m probably insane now, and you’re probably the reason for that, but I would remember everything you say, ever. I’ve never been no expert at nothing, but if you let me, I would memorise every detail about you and never complain. I want to know you, the same way you seem to know me uncannily well. Like we’ve met in a past life._ The lively music from the movie makes him feel even more like an idiot who’s throwing his heart out for no reason.

“You blame yourself,” continues James, “for not being exceptional. And I’m telling you now: go back and scratch all of that, really, because you, Steve Rogers, might be the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met.”

Steve laughs and shakes his head, flustered. “That’s gotta be an exaggeration; c’mon.”

“It’s not. I can’t explain it—Christ, I’m such a mess—but it’s just not,” James replies, and again Steve hears the shaky honesty that makes its way into his voice.

Steve nods, because there’s not really much he can say. “You look at the other pages?” he asks, and James shakes his head. Steve grabs the remote off the couch and mutes the movie, then hands the sketchbook over. Ignoring the couch, they sink down onto the floor like the day they’d had lunch together, and it’s completely, almost eerily quiet for five, ten, thirty minutes as James takes his art in page by page, some partially coloured and some unfinished sketches, but all of it has one thing in common—

“War,” Steve says, breaking the silence. “It’s been stuck in my head for days. I think I’m scared of it.”

“You don’t need to be scared,” says James, concerned. “It’s not going to happen again—”

“Not _of_ war,” Steve interrupts. “Of me.”

James tilts his head, curious. An invitation to keep talking.

“James, I… all my life, people have thought of me as this idealistic, perfect peacekeeper. Hell, _I_ thought me one too. But then y—” he stops himself. “Then I went to your museum, and suddenly—”

“It’s not actually _my_ museum, you know,” James says, then clears his throat. “Sorry. Keep going.”

“It’s like this gate was opened in my brain. The idea and adrenaline of it got so addicting: fighting for honour, for survival, and I just—” he exhales shakily. “If I was a good person, why would I think that way?”

“Steve. You are a good person,” says James, for the seemingly fiftieth time, and Steve feels so genuinely _bad_ , that he’s deceiving James somehow, even though he logically knows he’s not. “Believe it or not, I get it. Completely.”

“You work at a war museum,” Steve says. “Of course it’s gonna be on your mind, doesn’t mean—”

“Not that way,” says James. “My whole life, Steve, I’ve been fighting. And I’ve been on the battlefield in more ways than one, more ways than you’d know. And that’s okay. I don’t think I ever want you to fully understand—it’d take a toll on you, I know it would. But here’s the thing. I’ve been running from war for as long as I remember, and even past that. And yet every single turn of my life, I find myself right where I started, even when those choices belonged to me. It’s how I even ended up working in the museum in the first place. Fighting might be the one thing I’ve ever been good at, and I think my subconscious knows that too, deep down.

“Point is, you’re not a bad person for wanting to experience these things. We’re all messed up, in our own different ways. As long as you don’t go starting a war,” he adds, teasing, and Steve smiles but thinks that maybe, just maybe, he would for James.

“That was an incredible metaphor,” he says instead and doesn’t miss the way James’ little laugh sounds like he knows something Steve doesn’t.

“If you ever need to talk,” offers James, and Steve nods gratefully. “I get it, okay. Really.”

“You’re a good person too,” Steve says after a few seconds of silence, out of obligation or kindness or something else.

James smiles sadly. “I stopped telling that to myself ages ago,” he says, then frowns as he scrutinises Steve’s face. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“I’m not tired,” Steve says, then immediately feels a yawn building up somewhere in his jaw. “Sorry. I promise you’re not boring me.”

“Must be nice having a healthy sleep schedule,” James half-jokes. “It’s not even two yet. Let’s get you to bed, old man.”

“But the ice cream,” whines Steve.

“We’ll put it back in the fridge,” says James, but then Steve pouts and he relents. “Fine, fine. But we’re not finishing the entire tub tonight, okay? Go get two spoons; can’t be arsed to wash any bowls.”

Steve complies. His phone buzzes in his pocket, once, twice, then three times, and when he takes it out to check the screen he drops the two spoons he’s been carrying back to the couch. James is up at an instant. “Steve?”

#### 01:52

Saturday, November 7

MESSAGES | now  
**Clint Barton**  
its natasha

MESSAGES | now  
**Clint Barton**  
dont know what to do dont know where she is

MESSAGES | 1m ago  
**Clint Barton**  
they took

MESSAGES | 1m ago  
**Clint Barton**  
steve if you see this something happend please help i cant breathe

“Oh, God,” Steve breathes. “Oh, fuck.”

“What is it?” James asks even as Steve leaves the spoons on the floor and heads straight for the door, grabbing his jacket from the hook as he goes.

“It’s Nat, I—I gotta go check on Clint; knowing the guy he’ll have flipped his shit trying to find her already. But you have a good sleep, James, okay?”

“Nat? Natasha?” James blanches, and before Steve can understand what he’s doing, he too goes to get his jacket. “I’m coming with you.”

“You are not coming with me,” says Steve, his hand on the doorknob.

“Yes, I am,” James says. “Steve, look, I know this doesn’t make sense, and if you want an explanation I’ll give one. Not right now, though. We have to find her quick.” He pushes Steve aside and opens the door. “Call a cab,” he throws over his shoulder.

“ _James_ ,” Steve calls. He’s already bounding down the stairs of the building. Steve sends a text to Barton and prays he’ll be sensible. _Clint stay right where you are, we’re coming._

“We’re lucky he lives in Brooklyn too,” James says, out of breath with Steve leading the way, and after speeding across Williamsburg Bridge but before they know it, they’re at the stoop of Clint’s building. Steve’s never been here before.

“Steve?” someone calls from the dark and they both jump. The speaker steps into the glow of the nearest streetlight—tired eyes, dark hair, purple sweatshirt. “You here for Clint?”

“Kate,” says Steve while James stands awkwardly behind him. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” she replies, unsure. “Barton came to my floor and woke me up, like, ten minutes ago, told me he had something urgent and just left without Natasha or Lucky. He also told me to come down and tell you this. It’s cold out; son of a bitch.”

“Wait, what do you mean _without Natasha_?” Steve asks.

“They came home together after work,” she answers automatically, and as she waits a smug smile spreads over her face while she tilts her head, enjoying Steve’s quiet confusion. “You don’t know Natasha lives with Clint.”

Steve’s eyebrows go up. “I… did not.”

“Well, anyway, that’s all,” Kate shrugs. “He told me to tell you guys to go home, so…”

“Which way’d he go?” James asks instead.

“James.”

“Steve.” James turns his head and looks right at him, gaze fixed. “Go home.”

Steve scoffs softly and shakes his head minisculely. “I was gonna tell _you_ to go home.”

“Too bad you’re stuck with me, punk.”

He rolls his eyes. “Jerk.”

Kate clears her throat. “Look, I don’t really care what you guys do, as long as you don’t die. I do have to get back to bed though, before America wakes.”

“Thank you for your help, Kate,” Steve says sincerely, then gestures to James. “This is James.”

She smirks, “I gathered,” then winks and turns back towards the building. “He went left, by the way,” she throws over her shoulder before disappearing into the door.

“Okay. C’mon,” says James, lightly tugging on Steve’s jacket sleeve. Steve, caught off guard by the contact, stumbles along.

“You don’t even know where we’re going,” he tries to reason. “As much as I’m scared for Barton and Romanoff, who knows what they could’ve been dragged into; we could need backup—”

“I _am_ backup, Rogers,” says James, leaning in so close Steve can smell his scent. A second later, it’s over, and he’s back to being pulled along the pavement helplessly.

“Wait—James, wait.” Steve stops walking and James turns.

“What?”

Frowning, Steve points to the streak of red on the knee-height stone fence of the pavement that caught his eye even in the dark. James leans down to examine it. The substance rubs off on his index finger and he sniffs it.

He looks up at Steve. “It’s lipstick. I’d recognise this shade anywhere.”

Now that James’ pointed it out, Steve can see it too, can see this exact colour being worn by Natasha every day at work. As impressed as he is, he’s a little offended James caught it before he did—after all, he’s only met her once.

Like he’s reading his mind, James shrugs. “Eidetic memory,” he explains, and Steve isn’t even surprised.

“Of course,” he says. “As if you couldn’t get any scarier.”

“Hey,” James frowns. “What’s that mean?”

“It means, if you told me you were brought up as an assassin, I probably wouldn’t be shocked. You’ve got the physique, and everything.”

James laughs, genuine. “Christ. If only you knew,” he says, a smile tugging on his lips, and Steve feels like there’s a story behind that but files the question to ask a different day. Right now, they’ve got to focus on finding Natasha and getting Clint out of whatever mess he’s no doubt created _trying_ to find Natasha.

Together, they turn their heads following the short, horizontal path of the lipstick. When their lines of sight converge and lead to an entrance to the subway station, they exchange worried glances, knowing what the other is thinking— _I don’t like this, it could be a wild goose chase, they could be hours away, who knows what could’ve happened to them by now._

So naturally, Steve says out loud, “Let’s go,” and James instantly replies, “Yeah.”

They climb the stairs down into the station in silence, Steve’s hands in his pockets. Their footsteps echo on the granite flooring as Steve looks around at the walls, the rails, the ceiling. It’s deep into the late hours, has got to be at least two-fifteen by now, but trains are still arriving and stopping even though no one’s getting on or off.

“So, what do you think?” Steve asks. “Should we get on a train?”

“Not just yet,” James says slowly, eyes scanning around the station like he’s seeing something Steve’s not.

“You think they didn’t take a train?” Steve asks again, confused. “What’s the whole point of coming to the subway station, then?”

James snaps his fingers and points to a red dot on a faraway wall of one of the tracks, so small even Steve’s artist eyes didn’t catch it at first. “There it is again.”

After a quick look at the monitors that show they’ve still got a few minutes until the next train arrives, James hops down onto the rails, and Steve yells, “ _Hey_ , James, get back up here, that’s dangerous—”

Continuing his train of thought, James says, “Getting onto a train would’ve attracted attention, especially this late at night. Well, we don’t know when Natasha was taken, so at least for Clint. But if they didn’t go anywhere, if they were right here the whole time…”

He reaches out to touch the lipstick mark again. By now, Steve’s hopped down onto the tracks too, just a few steps behind James as he walks along the wall. “It’s been touched before,” he says, and Steve’s heart drops when he walks closer and sees two fingerprints instead of just James’.

Right then, a distant _thump_ comes from somewhere deeper within the tunnel, somewhere that sounds deeper in itself. Wordlessly, Steve and James start walking quicker until they find a door painted black.

Steve knocks on it. “Anyone in there?” he calls, but receives no response.

He turns to James. “Last chance to turn back,” he says, the same time James starts, “If you wanna go home—”

They both stop. Steve even laughs a bit. “I’m not going home,” he finally says decisively, and James nods once.

“Okay.”

Steve turns suddenly and kicks the door down—or tries to, anyway. He recoils in pain and steps back.

“Okay. In hindsight, I probably should not have done that,” he groans when it’s reduced to nothing but a throb.

James snorts, but still asks, “You alright?” and when Steve manages to nod, he reaches out with his left arm and breaks the lock on the door.

“Why didn’t you just do that first,” Steve exclaims while James just laughs and shakes his head.

“God, Rogers, you might be the most impulsive person I’ve ever met,” he says, and Steve scoffs.

“Out of the two of us, which one just broke the lock probably leading to an evil lair?” he asks. “Illegally, probably, I might add.”

“For the last time, Steve,” says James, opening the door, “I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s the first time you’ve said that,” Steve mumbles, but steps into the yawning darkness anyway. James’ arm darts out in front of his chest to push him back just in time, because Steve’s eyes take a second to adjust to the dark and sees too late there are _stairs_ leading downwards, that he could’ve fallen and broken an arm had it not been for James.

“Like I said,” James enunciates, “impulsive. _Stupid_.”

“How dare you; I’m a professor.” Steve takes his phone out clumsily and turns the flashlight on. The stairs seem long but not endless, and after a deep breath he starts heading down, James a breath behind him.

It’s quiet enough that time could’ve stopped; it’s maybe a minute, or two, or five before they hear something travelling up towards them. Voices, sounds like, two women, words muted. They pick up their paces just a tiny bit—Steve doesn’t want to trip, God knows how much he’s been overestimating himself—until the stairs reach an end and there’s a small stretch of floor before another closed door blocks their path.

“Turn your flashlight off,” James whispers, nodding towards the tiny gap between the door and the floor, and Steve does. This one doesn’t have a lock, but as if feeling the danger that awaits, they don’t say anything after that, just blending in with the silence and listening in the blackness.

“...won’t have anything to report back to Fury,” one of the two women is saying.

“Might I remind you that this isn’t your mission, Sharon,” the other one says, and James’ eyes widen.

“ _Fury_. Shit.” Even in the softness, the voice without bones, Steve can hear the fear, the slight tremble he knows James is trying to hide.

“What? Who’s that?” he says.

“Think we’re in trouble with the intelligence business, Stevie,” answers James, and Steve’s heart does a weird little thing, like James has been meant to call him _Stevie_ all this time. He blames it on the use of the word _we_ , though.

“What did _we_ ever do?” he asks. “Clint and Nat are the ones in trouble, James, they could be on the other side of this door for all we know.”

They seem to get their answer when out comes a new voice, so familiar it twists Steve’s guts: “Dude, word of the wise, quit it. C’mon, Barton, even you know you won’t be able to get out of that.”

 _Sam?_ Steve mouths, and James shakes his head.

“ _Bastards._ You can’t trust anyone these days.” James pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, we’re going in on the count of five. Five—”

“Just let her go, man,” they hear Clint say. His voice cracks. “She knows nothing.”

“Natalia Romanova is not who you think she is,” says Sharon, a voice Steve now comes to recognise as the _Carter_ he’d met just a few days ago.

“Just shut up, Clint,” Natasha says, voice bordering on begging, bordering on supplication, and that’s what makes both Steve and James snap.

“ _Fourthreetwoone_ ,” James says, blinded by rage, and together they burst into the basement of the subway station. In an instant, four handguns are drawn so quickly it takes Steve to recover from the echoes of the gun chambers clicking and count them—not Clint because he’s stuck in a cell lining the stone wall, Maria, Sharon, Sam, and—

“ _James_ , Jesus Christ,” Steve swears. “ _Where_ did you get that? Have you been hiding that in my apartment all this time, Jesus fucking—”

“The _hell_ are you two doing here,” interrupts Natasha, who’s bound by ropes to a wooden chair in the center of the room, lit only by a few flickering light bulbs. “James, get the fuck out, _ty prichina, po kotoroi oni zdes’. Ty dolzhen bezhat’, Bucky, bezhat’_ —”

“ _Ya znayu_ ,” James snaps, and Steve freezes, because while Natasha knowing Russian is obvious—she’s a Languages professor, after all— _James_ knowing Russian was not expected.

“What’s going—” he starts, then Sharon fires a gun into the air and it all goes (even more) to shit.

“Enough,” she snaps. “For God’s sake, how does everyone keep getting in here? You two, stop speaking in Russian. Barton, quit squirreling. Rogers—why are you even here? You’re a civilian. Get out before you get caught up further in this business. We’ll let you go if you don’t tell anyone about this.”

“I think I got caught up in this business when you _kidnapped my friend_ ,” returns Steve. “So, no, thank you, I’m not leaving.”

“ _Idiot_ ,” Natasha hisses just loud enough for him to hear, at the same time Maria says, “What the hell is wrong with you, Sharon, they’re not fucking _animals_ —”

“They might as well be!” she yells back, and the whole room is silent for one second before she continues. “You’ve seen their files too, Maria; _they might as well be_.”

Steve doesn’t miss the way Natasha looks down, eyes glistening.

“You know what, that’s fair, for me,” says James. “But don’t you _ever_ say that about Natasha again, at least she’s trying—”

She looks back up, looking feeble with her arms tied behind her. “You’re trying too, James; don’t be so hard on yourself—”

“ _Get in the cell_ ,” threatens Sharon. She points her gun at Steve, who freezes up, and James immediately drops his gun.

“Hey,” James says, hands in the air. “Alright. We’re gettin’ in the cell. No need to shoot nobody, especially not an innocent professor; okay?”

The two of them make their way to the entrance of the cell, where Sam unlocks the door with his key wordlessly and Clint watches on wordlessly as they step through to the other side of the iron bars wordlessly. They sink to the ground beside each other opposite Clint’s wall, and James sighs deeply.

Steve doesn’t even have a moment to ask either of the other men in the cell (especially James, but he can’t let himself get mad at him now, not when there are at least four guns in the room) what in the hell-fuck is going on, because a second later Maria is speaking again. “Carter, you are compromising this entire mission, dragging things and people into danger when it’s not necessary. That isn’t how we work. What is going _on_ with you—”

“Maria,” Sharon says, voice suddenly a lot softer. “You have to understand. They’re dangerous, like, _assassinating JFK_ level dangerous. They’re not like any others we’ve ever encountered.”

“Fuck you; she’s not an animal,” spits James, and it doesn’t matter how confused Steve is right now, all he wishes is for him to just shut up, knows he himself would be pissed as fuck if James somehow managed to get a bullet inside him. He understands Natasha’s sentiment for Clint now.

Sharon ignores James. “I just don’t want to treat them like children, okay, I don’t want to turn around and see you with a fucking bullet hole in your head. I really, _really_ , would not want that; and I’m actively trying to avoid—”

“And what does it matter to you?” Maria scoffs. “If I die, the world spins on; everything stays the same. Why,” she asks like it’s a challenge, “do you care so much, Carter?”

“ _Because_ ,” says Sharon, frustrated, and Steve thinks she’s going to stop there but she doesn’t. “Because. _M.H._.”

Sharon turns around so her back is facing Maria, then brings an arm back to sweep away the hair covering her neck. In the flickering light, even Steve can make out the bold letters printed on the back of her neck. Maria sucks in a breath.

“Been on me since I was born,” Sharon says, turning back. “Didn’t wanna tell you. We’ve been great partners. Right?”

Maria says, “Right.”

“Then I started trying to convince myself it wasn’t you,” Sharon continues, almost rambling. It’s the most vulnerable Steve’s ever seen her. “But I don’t know any other _M.H._ ’s, Maria, and even when I just _look_ at you—God, I _know_ it’s you. Do you know it too?”

“I know it,” she answers quietly, pulling her sleeve up so Sharon can read the letters on the inside of her forearm. She stares, transfixed.

“Sam, guard the cell,” Sharon orders without taking her eyes off of Maria’s arm. “Maria and I have to go up and. Get some air.”

“Do we now,” Maria states, putting her arm down. “You sure that’s a good idea? We got two trained assassins in there.”

“So _now_ you’re worried,” Sharon rolls her eyes.

Sam scoffs, speaking for the first time since Steve and James arrived. “Do I mean nothing to you?”

“You can choke,” Sharon replies. “Don’t die while we’re gone, though. And get the girl in there too.” She drags Maria out the door, still ajar from when James and Steve burst in. Once they’re out of the room, Sam unties Natasha and reluctantly points his gun through the bars at Clint as leverage until she’s safely locked in the cell with the rest of them, the only one standing in the midst of everyone else sitting. Even Sam’s sunken down onto the ground outside the cell.

They’re all silent for a few seconds. The adrenaline has shaken them all, but then Clint looks up at Natasha, pats the space beside him, and says softly, “Sit.”

Natasha’s face crumbles, the way it does when someone’s been too strong, too long. Her knees give way and she sits down, pulling her knees to her chest tightly. Clint whispers something to her, and they start having their own conversation, too quiet for Steve and James to hear, even just a few feet away.

Steve averts his gaze, feeling like he’s intruding on a private moment. He’s tired, too, can feel it in the downward tug of his eyelids, but maybe falling asleep in this cell beneath subway trains isn’t the best idea. Instead, he turns his head to James, and starts their own conversation by stating simply, “What the fuck.”

“I’m so sorry,” he replies like it’s an answer, and Steve turns his head away, frustrated. “No, I—listen, I really am. I never meant for you to get dragged into this whole mess. You haven’t ever done anything. I’m sorry; God damn it.”

“I didn’t ask for an apology,” says Steve. “Good to know you didn’t _mean_ to get us both held at gunpoint, though; that really clears things up.”

James sighs. “Don’t be like that, Steve. Look, I said I’d give an explanation. I’ll do it now, alright; just. Don’t interrupt; don’t freak out. And please, when I’m done, do _not_ tell me you are sorry.”

Steve thinks he can do that. “Okay.”

“Good,” James says, then turns his head away like he can’t look Steve in the eye anymore. Already, he misses the contact, the way when James is looking at him it feels like he’s found someone who understands, finally. “It started in 1917. My life, I mean. I was born in 1917.

“You ever wonder how I got myself working at such a depressing but beautiful job? All the shit I said that you thought were just metaphors? _Been on the battlefield more than once_ , I meant that. I meant it all. I got drafted to fight in ‘43.

“I know what you’re thinking. _James, you’re delusional. James, you need sleep._ I’m telling you, Rogers, this is the realest thing about me I’ve ever told you, my tragic backstory if you will, so I need you to believe me. I need you to believe me when I tell you that—I died.

“Or I should’ve, at least. I should’ve died; I was meant to die. Fell off a goddamn train while I was fighting off—” he breaks into a laugh, humourless. “Nazis. Real Nazis, ones who wanted me dead, for real, didn’t matter that they didn’t know me—I’m Jewish, you see. And I fell off the train into this ravine, and by all accounts I _died_. The official papers said so. I’m not supposed to be alive. I’m... living off borrowed time, even now.”

His voice is a bit hoarse now, from talking so soft. There’s something oddly comforting in it. “But I didn’t die. That made all the difference, as you can see. I didn’t die, because the same fuckers who were the reason I fell off in the first place found me in the snow. My arm was gone, but they took the rest of me, used their tools and torture to mold me into their perfect soldier.”

“ _Zimniy soldat_ ,” a voice says from opposite them, and Steve snaps his head up to find Natasha staring, hollow ghosts in her eyes. “The Winter Soldier, they called him.”

“The Winter Soldier,” James agrees, nodding. “Not bad, Widow.”

“I’m trying,” she says. “Sometimes it comes back in bits and pieces. Sometimes I remember. Other times I don’t.”

“It’s okay, Nat,” says Clint. He puts an arm around her and she leans into him. Their whisper-conversation starts up again, and so does Steve and James’.

“I’ve killed, Steve. These hands, metal and flesh, they’re stained with more blood than you’ve seen in your whole life. If that doesn’t scare you off, I don’t know what will.”

“I’m not going to run from you, James,” says Steve. “I know you. You’re gentle.”

James snorts like it’s funny. It’s not; Steve means every word. “Whatever. I’m not a good person. Far from it. You could even call me evil. The monsters that conspiracy theorists talk about. _Whatever._

“They froze me. My brain went back to a blank canvas every time they did it. I looked it up afterwards. Apparently, the technical term is cryostasis. For me it was hell.

“For the longest time, my mind wasn’t mine. Seven decades, and I never belonged to myself for any more than a few seconds at a time. But deep down, I think I knew something was wrong, and after seventy years something finally broke. Maybe they hadn’t been freezing me as frequently. You remember that freak accident in Russia four years ago?”

“Everyone does,” answers Steve. “It killed that government guy Pierce, didn’t it, along with, what, twenty, thirty others? No one ever found out what he was doing in Russia. They blamed it on an assassin; says he got caught.”

James raises an eyebrow and waits.

“Oh,” says Steve. “You killed Alexander Pierce.”

“Among other very influential people, yes,” says James. “You still unafraid?”

“You said your mind wasn’t yours.”

“Oh, but it was,” he says. “That one time—it was. Pierce wasn’t a good guy. He was corrupted, a neo-Nazi. You’d be surprised at how many are still here. I killed him,” he states, “and I ran.

“For years, I ran without a direction. I ran just to get away. I lived looking over my shoulder, and as you now know, I still carry a gun everywhere I go. But on that day, I broke free. I did it, and since I wasn’t being frozen anymore, it all started coming back. I came back to the States, but everyone I used to know was dead. Rebecca Barnes, remember her? She wasn’t my mother. She was my sister. Went missing shortly after I shipped out, but I found the painting in our apartment. It was the last piece of her I had. It’s gone now, too, so I guess it didn’t matter in the end.

“And since then, I’ve been trying to find myself a stable footing in this new, modern, hectic world,” he finishes. “And you know what? I don’t hate it. I earned this life for myself.

“That’s all. _Don’t_ say you’re sorry.”

“I wasn’t going to,” says Steve, and once again, it’s the truth. It’s always nothing but the truth, with James. “I was going to say—I’m proud. I’m proud of you, for breaking free, James, for finding your place in the world. That must’ve been hard.”

James smiles, intrigued. “You believe me.”

“Don’t really got a choice. From what I understand, currently, we’re literally being kidnapped by a secret agency, which my college best friend is part of.”

“We’re the good guys,” interrupts Sam. “And it pays well. By the way, I’m sorry, man. Like Barnes said, there really was no reason to get you into this mess.”

“It’s fine,” Steve says, because oddly enough, it is. “It’s definitely a refreshing break from the same schedule every day.” Plus, he doesn’t know if he could’ve survived not knowing where James was.

They fall back into a short-lived silence, looking straight ahead. Clint and Natasha are both asleep now, their hands tightly entwined, her head on his shoulder and his jacket draped around hers. They look peaceful, and that’s a feat in itself.

James starts speaking again, even softer so he doesn’t wake them. “They a couple?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admits. “Pretty sure they’re soulmates.” He nods towards the back of Barton’s hand, where the letters _N.R._ are printed. “I’ve never seen Natasha’s mark, though.”

“For a reason,” says James. “Don’t think she has it anymore. Where they used to train the girls, there used to be this ceremony—a graduation ceremony. They had ways to remove their soulmarks, for the ones who had them.” He shakes his head. “All that was decades ago, and it’s still fucking the both of us up every day. Still, just looking at them? I’d bet a hundred bucks hers used to say _C.B._.”

“You knew her,” Steve observes.

“Yeah, I did,” James says, a fond smile on her face. “One of, if not the strongest of them there’d been. Just couldn’t seem to die. She changed her name to Natasha towards the end, broke free and got the hell out of there. Over six decades younger than me, and she did it all before I could. She’s always been smarter than me.”

His voice drops. “I thought she was dead. Thought she was insane, that all the programming would get to her. Until just last week, when I saw her there. Alive as ever, with a mind of her own. Guess she’s even stronger than I gave her credit for. Should’ve known.”

Steve blows out a breath of air. “Wow. I didn’t know shit about my best friend.”

“Eh. You got a new best friend now, don’t you?” James playfully bumps his shoulder against Steve’s.

“Guess I do,” smiles Steve, and his heart soars. “Hey, you’re tired.”

“Not any more than you are,” he deflects, but even Steve, who’s apparently the world’s leading authority on not knowing anything, knows it’s a lie. Reliving all those stories must’ve taken a toll on him.

“You can sleep, you know,” he offers. “I’m not gonna let Sam kill you in your sleep. You can trust me, James.”

“I’m more worried for you, honestly,” smirks James even as he leans his head back and closes his eyes. “And one more thing: before the war, Becca used to call me Bucky. I trust you.”

“Okay, Bucky,” Steve says gently, listening to his breaths even out. It only hits him a few minutes later—Bucky Barnes. _B.B._.

He pulls his sleeve up to sneak another look at his soulmark, like he’s scared it’s changed. It hasn’t, staring back up at him like it’s mocking him for not figuring it out sooner.

“Oh, dude,” whispers Sam, peeking in through the bars. “Sorry. That’s rough.”

**————**

Steve wakes with a start and realises it’s because James—Bucky—has shifted under him, and it leads to two consecutive thoughts: _oh my God Bucky Barnes B.B. he’s my soulmate after all_ , and _oh my God I just fell asleep on Bucky Barnes AKA my soulmate_.

When he sits back up, he notes that his shirt sleeve is pulled back down, and Bucky’s awake, looking at him with a smile that makes him want to burst and melt at the same time. “Morning,” he says, voice gravelly like he’s been awake and talking in a low voice awhile. “You fell asleep; good thing none of us got murdered while you were out.”

“Yeah, Steve; you had one job,” Natasha says dryly with an eyebrow raised, both legs slung over Clint’s lap, who’s watching with an amused smile.

“Slept well, Nat. Thanks for asking,” Steve says, and she rolls her eyes.

“Alright. Now that we’re all awake,” starts Natasha, folding in her legs and standing with the help of her hand on Clint’s shoulder, “can we go now?”

Steve follows her eyeline towards the bars of the cell and finds Sharon and Maria standing on the other side with identical contemplating stares, Sharon’s hands on her hips and Maria’s arms crossed. Sam sleeps in the far corner of the room, which is still lit by the same flickering lights that had been on last night—or whenever Steve was last awake. He wonders how much time has passed since then, if it’s bright outside or not.

“Oh,” he says. “Hi. Did you two work out the soulmate thing? Congratulations, by the way.”

The two women exchange a glance, and Maria says, quiet and quick, “Thank you.”

“Anyways,” Steve says again, feeling talkative. “Is that, like, a thing now? Can we just ask them if we can leave?”

Bucky chuckles. “Can’t believe you missed our entire plan of escape sleeping in,” he says, to which both Maria and Sharon bristle at. “Joke! It was a joke; learn to take a _joke_.”

“The Winter Soldier making jokes,” Sharon says distastefully. “You sure this isn’t a dream, babe?”

“Thought we agreed on keeping PDA to a minimal level,” says Maria, and it’s funny to Steve how she finds a way to make even that sound formal.

“Oh, whatever,” Sharon says. “They’re all dead to me anyway.”

“When you were asleep,” Clint starts explaining, because he’s apparently the only one in the room who’s got common courtesy, “your boyfriend overheard Carter and Hill talking about their mission—or what it was supposed to be, anyway. Turns out they didn’t want to kill him after all, never did, and they took Nat just to get information on James.

“What they’re after is some kind of serum, to my understanding, something they injected into Barnes’ system. They wanna destroy it, so they never do that to anyone else again. And then he was like, _wait, I know what you guys are talking about_ , and then Nat woke up and she was like _I know what you guys are talking about too_ , and then they just spit out a bunch of Russian and I didn’t catch any of it, I only know the important stuff like _luchshiy drug_ , _ya lyublyu tebyu_ —”

“Wait,” Bucky interrupts. “What do you think the second one means?”

Natasha looks up subtly as Clint answers, “ _You’re an idiot_. Why?”

“Oh,” says Bucky. “Oh, no, I was just, uh, impressed. It’s one of the harder ones.”

“Thanks, man,” Clint grins. “Anyway, they came to the conclusion that their handlers—spies inside Hydra, maybe—gave them each one half of a whole coordinate. It’s not confirmed, but it’s definitely the most solid lead we—or they—have for now.”

“That was surprisingly not too off,” Natasha remarks, and Clint grins again, even wider this time.

“Fine. We’ll let you out,” decides Maria, and Steve internally lets out a relieved sigh, already feeling the soreness of his muscles from sleeping so uncomfortably. Not that that’s got anything to do with Bucky, though, he’d sleep on Bucky his whole life if he could—

“But,” says Sharon, holding up two pairs of handcuffs as the men in the cell stand up, “if you’re a trained assassin, you get cuffed. It’s in the rules.”

Natasha and Bucky exchange a look. “I’m gonna be honest with you, Carter,” he says, “should anything happen, a pair of handcuffs would be the last thing to stop us from doing anything. But whatever floats your boat, I guess.”

“Hey, I’ve known Natasha for years. She’d never try anything; ain’t the type to get us all in trouble,” defends Clint.

“It’s okay, Clint,” Natasha says. “It’s probably for the best. Remember how I can be when something gets into my head?”

Clint’s eyes go concerned, and he steps closer towards her. “That time in the library, that was—”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “And I was fine, thanks to you, but God knows what would’ve happened if—”

“Don’t,” Clint says, soft. “Don’t do that to yourself, Nat.”

“We’ll talk later, alright?” Natasha breathes and nods. Their foreheads are almost touching, until Maria unlocks the cell and awkwardly cuffs her wrists together behind her back and Clint watches on without interfering. Sharon does the same for Bucky, and after Maria wakes Sam by gently slapping the side of his face they finally get to step out of the basement. The stairs seem to take shorter than they did the night before, even with two of them in handcuffs, and when Sharon opens the door Maria has to hold her back as a train goes past with a _whoosh_.

Sharon glances down at a small piece of paper which looks like it’d been ripped out of her notepad in her hand. On it are a jumble of numbers: the coordinates of their destination in black ball pen, each half in different handwriting. Steve recognises them both—Natasha’s from all the days he’d stayed after school to help with her paperwork, and Bucky’s from the post-it notes he sticks on the fridge, reminding himself to get groceries. Next, Sharon takes out her phone, open on a digital map. “Shouldn’t be too far,” she announces, then looks both ways before leading them across the tracks and back up the ladder that comes up to her neck.

Steve steals a glance at the monitor overhead and notes it’s seven in the morning. Means he didn’t get much sleep last night. Bucky notices, and leans close to say, “When this is over, we are _so_ taking a ten-hour nap.”

“Stay in the whole weekend,” agrees Steve, stepping into the train beside him. Quite a few other people have watched this happen, but since it’s New York, no one pays much attention to the seven people who’ve seemingly climbed out of the gutter.

“It’s three stops away,” Maria says once the doors of the train has closed, like she’s the teacher-in-charge leading an elementary school class on a field trip. Steve looks around himself and finds it amusing how the strangers down the carriage would never pay attention to this ordinary cluster of seven; Sharon, Sam and Maria no longer in fake uniform but casual wear, looking like normal civilians with places to go on a Saturday morning. The rest of them are sitting on the seats, tired from getting half a night’s sleep on a stone ground. Natasha’s hand is looped around Clint’s elbow as he half-naps. Then there’s Steve, who feels out of place, dumped into a world of assassins and brainwashing and the discovery that he’s been lied to, quite a lot. He doesn’t blame them, especially considering the trauma and danger, but Natasha had told him all her language training had come from her mother. He nearly feels sick when his mind wanders to wonder if she even had a mother.

Last, and simultaneously first, Bucky sits in his jacket from the night before, looking typical and nothing like a century-old fellow who’s been frozen for most of his life. Steve doesn’t know how he does it, doesn’t know how much pain and haunted memories could fit into him, only knows that he’s the last person in the entire universe to deserve it. If he had a chance to take all of it away, he’d take it in a heartbeat, no matter the cost. He doesn’t even care if he dies, at this point. Dying for Bucky would be an honour.

Do all soulmates feel like this, then? This protective and possessive urge to take them away from all the evil in the world? Hopeless romantic as he is, Steve’s never understood tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, could never understand how events that awful could unfold when one already has everything; that everything being their soulmate. He gets it now, he thinks, can finally grasp how soulmates’ love would be able to turn good things into disastrous things—he’d burn the world down if it meant keeping Bucky safe.

The train arrives at the station not long after, Steve’s mind still groggy. He drags his feet along, motivated by Bucky’s promise they wouldn’t need to go anywhere during the weekend, and soon enough they stop at the door of a building that looks around ten storeys high, surrounded by blocks of other ones.

“This it?” Sharon asks, looking up.

“If some innocent old man comes answering the door wanting to know what the seven of us are doing at his door rudely awakening him on a Saturday—none of us are going home,” says Maria, then tentatively, she knocks on the metal front door.

**FLOOR ONE**

A bald, middle-aged man wearing glasses opens the door, dressed the opposite of smart in sleepwear. Maria scoffs like she’d tried to be hopeful but had doubted it all along.

“Sorry; how can I help you?” he asks.

“Nothing, Sir, we’re really sorry for bothering you—” starts Maria.

“Actually,” Bucky interrupts. “These three kidnapped us four and we had to sleep in what was practically a cave. But we’re friends now, I think. Right, guys?”

The eight of them are silent, then Sam says, “Barnes—”

“My point,” says Bucky, “is that I really need to use the bathroom. I’ve been holding it in since last night. So if you wouldn’t mind, Mr…”

“Sitwell.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr Sitwell…”

Sitwell huffs and opens the door wider so Bucky can walk in after Sharon unlocks his handcuffs. “Fine. Don’t take too long. It’s the only door you’ll see on the floor.”

Steve thinks he might be being a little rude, but Steve also doesn’t know this man at all. He waits with the agents and his friends outside the building and Sitwell stays under the doorway for at least a few minutes before they start exchanging glances, wary of the passing time.

Sitwell shakes his head once before announcing, “You know what, I’m going inside to check on h—”

A gunshot rings out from inside the building, and much like the night before, it acts as a trigger for them all to start moving. Sitwell’s head whips backwards towards the direction the shot had come from. Steve pushes past Sitwell to rush inside the building. Natasha pulls out her own gun from seemingly nowhere and shoots Sitwell in the foot, breaking out of her handcuffs while he doubles over in pain, then spinning his figure on the floor around so she can use them to cuff him instead. In one swift moment, she tears the sleeve of her shirt and ties it around his mouth, using it as a gag. “Got you, fucker.”

“Well, mark me down as scared and horny,” Steve hears Clint joke quietly from somewhere behind him, then sounds of the three agents entering the building behind him. He turns around to see Natasha dragging Sitwell to his feet, yanking him inside by the collar as Clint brings up the rear of the group.

“I do apologise on behalf of Clint. He watches SNL skits in his spare time,” she says, stepping over the threshold.

The first floor of the building looks like a typical living room, furnished with carpets and cushions with light green undertones. Under normal circumstances, Steve would even give Sitwell a compliment on how nice a home this was, but the one they’ve currently found themselves in is far, far from normal.

Steve finds the bathroom door ajar. He pokes his head inside, then leans back out to announce to the others, “Bucky’s not here.”

“Stairs.” Sharon motions with her head and makes for the carpeted stairway, gun gripped in her hands. The two other agents follow, moving so efficiently they’re practically a blur, then Natasha, hauling the uncooperative Sitwell up.

**STAIRCASE**

“Damn, we really are the only two without guns,” Steve says to Clint, who sheepishly pulls out yet another gun from his jacket. “Dude.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” he shrugs apologetically as they trudge up the stairs behind Sitwell and Natasha. “Nat’s been making me carry one around for years.”

“Not cool, Barton. I feel so left out right now,” Steve grumbles.

The team reaches the second floor. Looking at it from where they’re standing on the landing, there’s nothing on the floor except for a bedroom that seems too big for one, even though the building doesn’t look like a residential space from the outside. Steve had expected a fancy office, maybe.

“Romanoff?” Maria asks as if for confirmation, and she nods like they’re on the same page.

“First few floors are a ruse, guys,” Natasha assumes. “Bet y’all it’ll get weirder and weirder as we go up.”

Sure enough, they pass the third floor, a movie theatre that occupies the whole floor with just a projector and screen hanging on a wall and cushions on the floor; the fourth floor, a few music practice rooms with different instruments inside each one; and the fifth floor, disguised as an attic. Natasha takes one look at the pile of miscellaneous items and decides, “Worth coming back later, but I doubt they’d hide something as valuable as a super-soldier serum on this floor.”

The carpet on the stairs disappears, exposing the rough concrete underneath. The sixth floor is—unsettling. It’s well lit by warm yellow overhead circular lights, but other than that, there’s a striking nothingness. It reminds Steve a little of how it felt inside before he met Bucky.

“And there we have it,” says Natasha, a dry smirk in her voice. “The border.”

“Border,” repeats Clint, looking confused.

“All the floors from here onwards are probably supposed to hold classified information and objects,” she clarifies. “This floor acts as a buffer, of sorts. In fact, I’d bet that by stepping on this landing, we triggered some silent alarm.”

“What?” snaps Maria. “So what do we do?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re scared of a little combat training,” Natasha teases. “They’re all pathetic. Nothing but mindless Nazi goons.”

“Mmn nmbh mnfdnmmh,” says Sitwell defensively from where Natasha’s still got a hold of his collar, and she smiles to herself, pleased.

Taking care to be quiet, they go on with their adventure up the stairs. Floor seven is huge, lined with rows and rows of beige file cabinets. Natasha glances between this floor and the remaining stairs to go, torn.

“We’ll split up,” she says decisively, turning around to face the rest of the team.

“That is a bad idea,” Sam says immediately, and the others voice their disagreement as well.

“No, listen,” she says. “This floor’s only got files. Probably no serum, so you guys can keep going up. Clint and I will dig around; try and see what we can find.”

Maria, Sharon and Sam look like they all want to say something more, but Natasha’s already gone in through the doorway with Sitwell mumbling muffled complaints, and Clint shrugs, “Good luck, guys,” and follows.

Maria huffs and leads them up the stairs to the eighth floor. “Alright, no one else is splitting up.”

“Barnes better not have gone rogue,” says Sharon. “If he double-crossed us and this was all just a trap—”

“He wouldn’t,” Steve shuts her down.

**FLOOR EIGHT**

The remaining four of them are five steps into the floor before they’re ambushed by an entire swarm of people dressed in black. “Don’t move,” someone threatens, and they start backing Steve and the agents back towards the stairs.

“Okay,” Maria says. “We’re splitting up.”

No one seems to bother enough to tell Steve what the plan is, but a second later they’ve all leapt into action—grunts of fighting, thuds of punches, and Steve’s still just standing near the door.

A gunshot comes, deafeningly loud and close, and when Steve stands back upright from how he instinctively ducked, Maria stands with a gun in hand. A Hydra agent falls to the floor, a bullet in his back.

“Rogers,” Maria locks eyes with him through the chaos. “This better be worth it. Find him, and go now. _Go_.”

Steve nods, a hurried show of appreciation, then ducks back into the stairway and rushes up towards what looks to be the highest floor of the building.

**FLOOR NINE**

The landing opens into a dark space, with just a few small windows lining the ceiling. Steve slows his pace and can only hope that they’ve sent all their forces to the eighth floor so he doesn’t get beat up. Or killed. But then again, he doesn’t want his new friends to be beat up or killed either.

He cracks open the door on the other side tentatively, feeling awfully and ridiculously unprepared. To call out for Bucky he’d have to have a death wish, and so he stays as silent and slow as he can, until maybe thirty steps down the hallway that’s turned at least twice. Some light and sound seem to pour in from ahead and he spots movement, a swish of a head full of hair.

He freezes when he’s met with Bucky’s concerned blue eyes.

“Don’t move,” he warns, quiet as a breath. Steve notices he’s standing right next to a doorway, as if he’d been peeking in before he arrived. Bucky moves then, shuffling to his right so he can make way for Steve. “See for yourself.”

Steve sticks the edge of his face around the doorway as inconspicuously as he can manage. The first thing he notes is a dark-haired man pointing a gun at the opposite wall of the room. The second thing he notes is the shadow of a brunette girl, looking just a little over twenty, shaking and huddled into a ball against said wall. The third thing he notes is a kind of display stand, and on it a few test tubes holding a bright blue liquid.

The fourth thing he notes is that behind the man and the girl, behind the display stand, an entire array of storage shelves stands, and on each and every one of them, more of the serum is stored. There are at least a thousand samples of the serum on this floor—more than they could ever dream to destroy.

Steve ducks back around where Bucky waits, back against the wall. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “We’re screwed.”

Just then, the man’s voice comes from inside the room. He’s being loud; he’s yelling. “What did you do?” he asks, and the girl whimpers. “Who did you tell, Skye?”

They hear the girl—Skye—taking a few shaky breaths before answering, “I swear, I didn’t tell anyone. Please don’t shoot.”

Bucky catches the look on Steve’s face and warns again, “Steve. _Steve_ , do _not_ —”

“Hey, big guy.” Steve steps into the doorway, holding both his hands out as a precaution like he’s trying to calm a wild beast. “Put the gun down.”

Immediately, the man whirls around and takes a few shots at him. He ducks and the bullets get stuck in the walls right beside and behind him. Startled by the sudden bursts of sound, Skye turns her head too and pushes her arms out. Before he knows it, Steve’s flying through the air, pushed by a force he can’t see and landing on the floor of the hallway outside the doorway.

“Steve,” Bucky says, concern in his voice. He drops to his knees. “You okay?” He looks back up through the doorway, where the girl’s now shaking even harder and cradling her arms. The man’s also on the floor, scrambling to get up. “What just happened? She didn’t even touch you; she was, like, seven feet away.”

Steve finds his footing and stands up. The man takes a wary glance at him and Bucky, then focuses back on Skye.

“That’s it,” he encourages, and Steve feels sick. “This is what we trained you for. Protect Hydra, like you were created to do.”

Skye’s crying, tears in her eyes as she shakes her head, but it’s not exactly a refusal. “I never wanted any of this, Ward.”

Ward scoffs. “Too bad.” He pulls his gun on her again, and Steve swears to God if he pulls the trigger he’ll take the bullet for the poor girl. “Did you forget? We were the ones who made you into who you are today. These powers you have, it’s all thanks to us and us only. There was an agreement that you’d fight for us.”

“I never _wanted_ this,” repeats Skye. “Maybe I don’t like who— _what_ you made me into.”

While Ward’s been arguing with Skye, Steve’s slipped into the room again, deliberately skirting around the two figures and towards the display stand. Maybe he can start by smashing two, maybe three test tubes. Maybe it’ll make a difference after all.

And then Ward spots him and swears, “Son of a bitch,” and Skye turns and blasts him again. He ends up on the floor, the wind knocked out of his lungs for the second time.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky calls out louder this time, and then another gunshot echoes through the room. Everything is frozen for a crystallised moment when Steve and Skye try to comprehend what just happened before they see Ward on the floor, a bullet planted squarely in his forehead. Bucky breathes heavily, his hands still holding the gun.

“Buck—” Steve starts, and then Skye lets out the most scared scream he’s ever heard. The windows of the room burst inwards as she puts her arms over her head like she’s shielding a thunderous sound and the lights emit sparks before going out entirely.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Bucky chants. The very floor they’re standing on starts shaking. “Stop—Skye, stop—”

“Skye, please,” yells Steve over the noise, and he realises why she’d been cradling her arms a moment ago. “Your powers, they’re hurting you, we need to get help—”

“You don’t know anything!” Skye screams and everything shakes more vigorously. Steve can practically feel her fear from where he’s standing.

“Yes, we do,” Bucky calls back. “Yes, I do. Trust me. And we’re not asking you to join our side—I’m saying we’re on _yours_.

“I know what it’s like to be controlled and manipulated by bad people, to live in fear every day because of constantly feeling like you don’t know who you are. I’ve had to rediscover my identity over and over again.”

Everything still shakes the same, but it feels as though it’s getting quieter. Skye’s listening to Bucky.

“I can’t promise you that process is going to be easy,” he continues, and Steve watches on in awe. “It feels like being thrown into something you never wanted to be a part of, then being expected to just—be okay with it. But it’s fine to take time. Everything good takes time.”

The shaking and noise cease. They’re descended into an eerie yet peaceful kind of silence, the calm after the storm. Bucky’s not yelling anymore. He just sounds tired.

“I can promise you that you won’t be alone,” he says. “I found places and people that helped me feel comfortable in my own skin again. Like Steve.” He turns to Steve with a small, grateful smile and Steve smiles back, unexpectedly touched. “We haven’t known each other long, but it feels like forever. Maybe he can help you too. Or even better, maybe you’ll find your own family. I promise you this, Skye, one day you’ll wake up, living a life surrounded by people who love you for who you are, and it’ll all be worth it. Promise.”

Skye crumbles to the floor at the same time it stops shaking completely, face buried in her hands. Steve rushes forward to check on her, whispering reassurances that she’s going to be okay, everything's going to be sorted out.

Bucky takes a good look at the shelves in the room and shakes his head. “There’s no way we could destroy all of that. Even with the seven of us.”

Hurried footsteps come from the hallway, and Bucky turns with his gun until he realises it’s just Sam and Sharon. Sighing, he puts it down.

“What happened?” asks Sam. “We felt the entire building shake. Wait. Is that—“

“The serum, yeah,” Bucky answers. “Wait. You felt the entire building shake? Even down there?”

“Yeah, we thought it was an earthquake. Came up here to check on you, but it’s apparently stopped.”

“I have a plan,” announces Bucky. “We have to get everyone we know out of the building right now. It’s Skye—don’t you see?”

“What?” Sam asks, like Bucky’s on another whole wavelength.

“Just trust me,” he says. “It’ll work; it has to. Where’s Maria?”

Sam goes silent and looks to Sharon, who’s been quiet the whole exchange.

“She’s on the eighth floor,” she answers simply.

“Alright,” says Bucky. “We have to go get her; Clint and Natasha too.” He starts walking down the hallway and Steve, who’s got an arm around Skye, and the agents follow.

Bucky stops at the landing of the eighth floor. “Okay. Where’s Maria?”

“We have to go,” says Sharon.

“Carter, this isn’t funny, go get Maria; my plan ain’t going to be pretty—”

“We have to _go_ ,” she repeats, like she’s understanding what Bucky’s saying but not being allowed to let it show.

“Where _is_ she,” says Bucky, turning towards the floor. They can’t even see much of the floor tiles; it’s all covered by the unconscious bodies of the Hydra agents the three left, all dressed in black—

Sharon reaches out and pulls on his sleeve to make him turn back and face her.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, Carter,” Bucky hisses.

“We just have to go, okay,” she says for the third time.

“It’s okay, Bucky,” says Sam. “Listen to her.”

Bucky stares a second longer before relenting. “Fine. We’ll go.”

Sharon leads the way down to the seventh floor’s landing this time, finding Clint and Natasha huddled together in a corner, Sitwell lying on his stomach with an annoyed look on his face.

Clint stands when he sees them. “Guys, thank God—what on earth just happened; we felt the building—who’s this? And where’s Maria?”

“This is Skye,” introduces Bucky hurriedly. “It’ll all make sense; promise. But now we have to go.” Sharon nods, like she’s backing Bucky up.

“Alright,” says Clint, holding out his arms to help Natasha up and leaving Sitwell tied on the floor. “C’mon, Nat.”

Steve wants to ask them what happened, but they’re in a hurry. He figures it can wait for later, because the seven of them stumble their way down to the next floor, all of them shaken in some way.

“Stop,” someone says somewhere on the staircase above and behind them, and Steve isn’t even scared anymore, just tired. When he turns to find yet another agent dressed in black, the back of his mind wonders how there could still be any left as Sam ushers them all onto the sixth floor, knowing they wouldn’t be able to outrun them on the stairs.

**FLOOR SIX**

Steve remembers this floor; empty and hollow. It puts him on edge, the way the team feels way too exposed. The agents start pouring in through the entrance from the stairs and he hears Natasha sigh before cocking her gun.

“Stay alert,” warns Sam. “We’re all getting out of here.”

Steve doesn’t even know if he has it in him to fight or even stay awake anymore. But then Bucky throws a punch, and his heartbeat flares up again, instinct taking over as he shoves and kicks with not much technique. Hopefully, it’s helping Bucky and the team even just a little.

The world narrows down to gunshots and feelings. Feelings of punches and pain splitting across where skin connects, but Steve doesn’t cry out, and he always stands back up. Now, though, some agent is fucking him up really bad. He sees red, can’t see anything but red, can’t feel anything but getting hit repeatedly, and then the agent freezes, goes down shaking like he’s been electrocuted.

“Thanks?” Steve says to Natasha, who’s holding something that looks like a taser menacingly. She huffs in response, her eye caught on the last agent standing in the room, maybe ten feet away—

And he goes down too, a huge stapler hitting his head squarely. Just like that, he’s knocked out clean, and everyone turns in shock to find Clint Barton with his mouth hanging open.

“It was on the seventh floor,” he explains in the suddenly quiet room. “Thought it might come in handy. Did I ever tell you guys I have, like, freakishly good aim—”

“I love you,” Natasha says instead, then looks surprised at herself. Clint goes red even faster than Sam’s eyebrows go up.

The room is silent again, and Steve knows not to ruin the moment, even if it’s just Natasha and Clint staring at each other with equally unreadable faces.

“Aww,” says Skye.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Bucky says, a hand pressed to his stomach catching his breath. “The plan, remember? We need to get out before any of the agents wake.”

“Yeah,” says Clint, “C’mon,” and he takes Natasha’s hand. The two of them lead their way down to the first floor wordlessly, and this time, it seems there’s no one still conscious enough to jump out at them and attack. Finally.

**FLOOR ONE**

The team lets out a collective sigh when they catch sight of the familiar living room. Clint, Natasha, Skye, Sam and Sharon bolt towards the front door, still open from when Bucky had first entered, and Steve steps forward too before a sinking feeling starts in his stomach.

Carefully, he turns. Bucky stumbles over nothing thirty feet from the door, clutching at his stomach, which Steve now realises has a growing red patch with dread.

“Steve?” he says on his knees, and Steve catches him before he falls face-down onto the carpet.

“What happened?” he asks, scared scared _scared_ , and when the others see they try to rush back in to help but Bucky won’t let them, holding out a hand: stop.

“I got shot, genius,” he answers, breaths becoming heavier.

“Get up, Buck,” Steve urges. “We’ll get you to a hospital.”

Footsteps come from above the ceiling. Steve looks up fearfully. There’s a whole lifetime ahead of Bucky.

“There’s no time,” Bucky urges back. “You have to get out of the building. Listen to me. Skye is the answer.”

“I’m not leaving you in here, Bucky, the fuck?”

Bucky changes tactics, yelling instructions at the team through the doorway instead. “Skye,” he says to catch her attention. “You’re the plan.”

She frowns. “What?”

“You’ve always been the plan,” he says. “Your powers—you’re capable of… quaking things, right?”

“I’m a work in progress,” she says unsurely.

“I need you,” says Bucky, looking her in the eye, “to bring the building down.”

“What?” she breathes.

“I know you can do it,” he says. “Sam and Sharon felt it and Clint and Natasha did too. I really believe if you focus, if you tap into what you’ve got, you’ll be able to quake the building down, and destroy all the remaining samples of the serum. That’s the mission, right?”

The footsteps are getting louder, and Bucky’s basically immobilised on the carpet, blood seeping into the fibres.

“We don’t have time,” he says. “Steve, leave me. Get out. And then do it, Skye. I know you’re scared. But I have faith.”

The Hydra agents burst onto the first floor, and the air becomes a sea of flying bullets. Thinking fast, Steve tackles Bucky to the floor, pushes him under a dining table and climbs on top of him to shield him from the bullets and the inevitable fall.

“Do it now, Skye!” Steve screams. For a terrifying moment, nothing happens, and the bullets just keep flying. From here, he can’t see the door, and he thinks maybe Skye’s failed and the team’s run, leaving them to fight for themselves. But then he takes one look at Bucky’s face beneath him, impossibly close: his eyes are shut tightly, as if expecting the worst. He believes in Skye, so why shouldn’t Steve too?

There are so many things he wants to say to him, but then the ground starts shaking and the walls do too, and Steve closes his eyes as he feels everything around them fall.

**UNDER THE RUBBLE**

“Bucky, wake up.” Steve gently pats the side of his face until he blinks blearily. “Bucky, hey. We’re okay.”

“Speak for yourself.” One of his hands goes down to put pressure on where he’s bleeding, and the other comes up to stroke Steve’s face. “Haven’t been shot in a while.”

“But you’ll be okay,” Steve says. “Right?”

“Wish we had more time, Stevie.”

“No; don’t talk like that. The team’s gonna find us soon, and we’re gonna get you help.”

“Steve, we’re under nine storeys of rubble.”

“Sue me for being an optimist,” Steve says, and Bucky laughs.

“I could never,” he says, and Steve feels like that means something but he _doesn’t know_ , wants Bucky to stop with the riddles and the beautiful way he skirts around the elephant in the room and just tell him—

“Last night,” Bucky continues, “when telling you my—life story, I guess; I missed something out, something important,” and Steve thinks _oh_ , Steve thinks _maybe this was meant to happen all along._

Bucky shakes his head, his hand never leaving Steve’s face. “I used to have a soulmark. It was on my left arm.

“I lost it when I fell off the train. But I never forgot it,” he swears. “ _S.R.._ It was always you, Steve; I knew it since the first day we met.”

“That’s all I’ve wanted to hear,” Steve admits, and then he’s kissing Bucky as gently as he can manage. It feels like it’s been in the making ever since the day Natasha invited him to the museum, memories of smiles and stories flashing in his mind.

“You know,” Bucky says, “my whole life, I’ve seen a lot of shit. I’ve lived through a lot of shit. So few things are sweet and true—but you’re one of them, did you know? You’re one of them. Might be the best.”

Steve pulls up the sleeve of his shirt for the first time around Bucky. He sees it too, and Steve thanks God it wasn’t all just a figment of his overactive imagination, because Bucky’s the realest thing he’s ever known, a steady rock in the ever-changing stream of life, especially the chaos it’s turned into over the past two days. But Steve would take an absolute mess of an untethered life with Bucky over any one without him.

Bucky traces over Steve’s soulmark, a sad smile on his face. “You deserve better than me.”

“No,” Steve says. “No, Bucky. It was always you too. Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry, Steve,” he says, and his eyelids flutter, phasing in and out of consciousness.

“No—Bucky, hang on,” Steve says like it’s a promise. He begins to survey the damage done around them: the dining table’s stayed mostly intact, so that could be a little safe space. Steve knows he’s tired, but doesn’t allow himself to feel it just yet. He was promised a ten-hour nap when they got home, together.

He can see, Steve realises. That means the light is coming from somewhere. He hangs on to the sliver of it, tries to map out a way he can get to that pinprick gap above them. Steve moves the closest piece of broken rubble and a few other pieces fall in. He jumps, but the unconscious Bucky stays untouched.

It takes him minutes and hours, maybe, but he doesn’t stop putting his hands on any pieces he can find and taking it down. The adrenaline he gets whenever he looks at Bucky helps, and there’s no one but him and the stones for the longest, darkest time.

The gap becomes bigger and bigger, until it’s roughly the size of his spread-out palm. “Natasha!” he screams. “Sam!”

“Oh, my God,” he hears someone say. Natasha. “Steve,” she yells, and there are footsteps of the whole team running over.

Steve exhales in relief. “We’re safe, Buck,” he says to Bucky, who doesn’t move. His heart is still beating, though, Steve’s sure of it.

More pieces of rubble get moved around, but Steve’s not the one doing the moving this time. Sharon peers down through the hole disbelievingly. “Son of a bitch.”

It only takes them a few more minutes to get the hole big enough to haul people through. Steve makes sure to get Bucky through first, knows he’ll need the air, and then Sharon and Sam pull him up too, and that’s when he blacks out.

**————**

https://catco.com/story/2014-11-07/hydra-uprising-fight-breaks-out/

**CATCO WORLDWIDE MEDIA**

## HYDRA Uprising

### Fight breaks out in Brooklyn building, fatal collapse kills thirty

November 7, 2014 | by Kara Danvers

UPDATE 11:08 EST: Files from inside the building have been uncovered, holding extensive information about an intelligence agency called HYDRA. Shockingly, it is revealed to have been behind many historical disasters, like _the train accident that killed Pierce_ and even the assassination of JFK. The fight has since been dubbed the _HYDRA Uprising_.

Just this morning at eight, a few blocks worth’s residents of Brooklyn were awoken by a loud crash. One of the buildings has been “quaked” down, leaving nothing behind but a big pile of rubble. According to the residents, this building has been around for quite a few decades, leaving them not only pitiful but confused as to what made this building, and only this building, collapse in such an inexplicable way.

Witnesses report seeing seven figures dressed in casual wear entering the building, one of which entered preceding the other six, before the fatal fall. The rubble patterns left at the site suggest some have been pushed aside as if to find something, perhaps a person, but so far thirty-two bodies have been found inside the building, most of which have not survived the fall.

People on social media platforms have taken to posting and sharing theories that _the Winter Soldier_ , who has allegedly made appearances throughout history since the end of World War Two, had been one of the figures spotted. Theories that one of the women in the group had superpowers that took the building down have also been going around. Regardless, we are unsure who these people are or what their motives are, or if they are even involved in the fall of the building.

Since this fall happened no more than two hours ago, this article will be updated as Catco acquires new information. Be sure to check in regularly to keep yourself posted!

**NYPD NEWS** @NYPDnews  
Our hearts stand with the victims of the HYDRA uprising and our prayers go out to their families. United, we stand. ❤️

 **Rosie Baird** ✨ @roosieee__  
Are you kidding me? What is this shit?? The so-called “victims” were nazis!!! NYPD get your shit together

> **NYPD NEWS** @NYPDnews  
>  Our hearts stand with the victims of the HYDRA uprising and our prayers go out to their families. United, we stand. ❤️

**J A C Q U E S** @jackiesaunds  
okay but everyone saw the video of the girl, right? she clearly quaked the building down… the inhuman apocalypse is coming

> **CatCo Worldwide Media** @CatCo  
>  Fight breaks out in Brooklyn building, fatal collapse kills thirty. Read the article here: [bit.ly/2WMNo3E](https://bit.ly/2WMNo3E)

>>BUZZFEED (off-screen): Thank you so much for joining us today on Season 2 of _How I Lost My Soulmate_. We’re so sorry for your loss.

>>CARTER: Thank you; I appreciate it.

>>[Buzzfeed intro]

>>CARTER: Hi. I’m Agent Sharon Carter of SHIELD, and today I’ll be talking about how I lost my soulmate.

>>BUZZFEED: Now first, we understand there are some political queries surrounding your particular scenario—I guess our first question is, why here? Why here on a Youtube video?

>>CARTER: Well, mostly because you guys are more chill. [Laughter] No, no, I mean it. Everything on the news nowadays, it just all gets blown out of proportion. We know it’s been two weeks since… the incident, and people haven’t stopped asking questions. While I can’t deny that SHIELD P.R. did send me here, it’s quite suiting, in a way. All of this, the HYDRA Uprising, the main theme here is loss. Loss of a trust in the people in power of this country—you saw the way they had to arrest those officials for having ties; loss of faith; and for me, loss of love. In the end, none of this political shit matters. Sorry, I shouldn’t swear. But it’s true.

>>BUZZFEED: Tell us about your soulmate.

>>CARTER: My soulmate. Agent Maria Hill was the deputy director of our intelligence agency SHIELD. She was the best agent I knew. Still is. She was—decisive, I think. Always got all her missions done properly and efficiently. What we had was special. She would’ve really been happy to see HYDRA fall.

>>BUZZFEED: How did you lose her?

>>CARTER: In a fight. Stuff like this happens all the time, unfortunately. She gave her life for the greater good, and because of that, two other pairs of soulmates are still alive today. And before you ask, I won’t be giving out any names. They’re civilians.

>>BUZZFEED: HYDRA had quite a number of files on SHIELD, and that’s why the agency can’t hide any longer. Having a famous soulmate must be weird, but a soulmate that gets famous only after they’re gone, that must be weirder. The world mourning your loss along with you… how does that feel?

>>CARTER: It’s not easy, definitely. Sometimes I get mad. I mean, none of these people knew her. She herself probably wouldn’t have liked the fame. But she’s gone now, and she does deserve to be remembered. Probably more than anyone else. So, yeah, I generally don’t mind it, though it is a little weird, like you said. Just be respectful; don’t overstep.

>>BUZZFEED: You were kind enough to volunteer a picture. So this is Agent Maria Hill. She looks happy.

>>CARTER: She was. I don’t have a lot of pictures of us together, aside from the official SHIELD ones. This was taken the night before the Uprising. We didn’t know what was coming then. It must’ve been, like, three in the morning, God; and we were going to get some air together and she was so excited, planning motorcycle dates and everything. She’s really competitive, by the way; her idea of a date was _racing on motorcycles_. [Laughter]

>>BUZZFEED: It sounds delightful.

>>CARTER: I’m sure it would’ve been.

>>BUZZFEED: Agent Carter, thank you so much for joining us today. Our hearts go out to you and Maria’s loved ones.

>>CARTER: Thank you for having me. Oh, flowers! Thank you. They’re very beautiful.

>>BUZZFEED: Have a good day!

>>Struggling with the loss of a soulmate? Text hotline in description. You’re not alone.

**————**

“Why is the exhibit still up?” is the first thing Natasha asks when she catches sight of the words above the doorway, hand in Clint’s arm.

“They decided to keep it,” answers Bucky, “considering how it was pivotal in Agents Hill, Carter, and Wilson’s investigation. It’s gonna earn us a lot of money.”

“But we get free passes, right?” she counters, and Bucky laughs.

Sharon’s the last to arrive, dressed in black and holding a bouquet.

“Hey, Carter,” greets Sam. “Nice flowers.”

“I just came from an interview,” she explains. “These aren’t for you.”

“You wanna come in?” Bucky asks, walking backwards into the exhibit with his arms spread out. “I know my way around.”

“I will gladly follow,” says Steve, and the others make their way inside too, Skye looking around curiously.

Steve remembers the paintings like they were from two months ago, only his first visit had been but three weeks ago. A lot has changed. Bucky’s wound has healed.

They stop at where the wall holds an empty space. Bucky turns to Sharon and raises his eyebrows expectantly.

Sharon sighs. “Okay, fine, yes, we were the ones who stole the painting,” she says, then reaches into her bag and hands the canvas back. “Sorry, I guess.”

“You’re really bad at apologies,” Bucky notes light-heartedly, hanging the painting back on the wall.

“It was only so we could shake your ground a little. Make you more vulnerable,” Sam explains, as if that helps make it better.

“So, everyone’s here,” says Clint. “This isn’t goodbye, is it?”

“No,” Steve shakes his head. “This whole… mess might be wrapped up, but don’t think you’re rid of us that easy,” he tells Sam and Sharon.

“We’ll visit,” Bucky promises Skye. “Be well. Be good.”

“No promises, Dad,” she smiles cheekily.

“Don’t worry about Skye,” says Sharon. “She’ll be well taken care of. SHIELD has extensive therapy services. Not to mention training courses.” She takes a fond look at Skye. “She would’ve really liked you, I think.”

Steve watches on as Sharon takes out a daisy from her bouquet and puts it in Skye’s hair. It suits her. Sam approaches him and pulls him in for a hug, patting his back and giving him a grateful smile before turning to leave with Sharon and Skye.

Steve turns back to face Clint and Natasha. “So,” he says. “You finally plucked up the courage to tell him. Eight years, Romanoff, God.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how you managed that,” says Bucky. “Steve lasted, like, a week.”

“ _You_ were the one who—” Steve says, then laughs and shakes his head.

“Hey, man, this looks good on you,” Clint points out.

“Suppose now the two of you are going to stay in your apartment forever,” Natasha sighs dramatically. “Let’s face it. We’ll probably never see you again. Love’s a curse.”

“Don’t be jealous, Natasha,” Bucky says. “We’ll always have the moon.”

Natasha smiles a little bit before leaning into Clint. “I’ve got my sun right here.”

“We’ll be heading home now,” Clint says, turning a little to kiss her hair. “Take care. We’ll see you at work tomorrow,” and they leave too, exchanging smiles and secret words of their own.

Steve and Bucky fall back into silence after they’re gone, the way they always do when they’re alone. They look at the painting, admiring and thoughtful, and Steve speaks up.

“You know, he’s always looked familiar to me,” he says, and wonders if he’d recognised that Bucky’s soul was made of whatever his was since the beginning. “Bucky Barnes, out to war, against the world.”

“Does have a nice ring to it,” Bucky agrees.

He looks at Bucky with a gentle smile. Smiles are less rare, now, and Steve doesn’t plan on taking it for granted anytime soon. “I gotta go for work, Buck.”

“Ugh,” Bucky grimaces.

“I know. I’ve got no idea how Clint and Natasha never seem to have after-lunch periods. But I’ll see you home, hmm?”

“I’ll be there,” says Bucky, and he smiles when Steve leans in for a peck on the lips.

A few more weeks pass, and Steve doesn’t stop thanking the universe for giving them a happy ending every day. Bucky gets a tattoo of _S.R._ on his right arm. He gets a pitiful look from the tattoo artist, who probably assumed he was trying to make a non-soulmate relationship work. He doesn’t correct him, though, doesn’t explain. He doesn’t need to.

Somewhere in a New York war museum hangs a painting.

This painting, rich with shades of white and a green-brown figure in the middle, has evidently been through a lot. It’s survived through a war and a rather recent kidnapping, and yet it’s stayed just as beautiful, the value arguably even higher. A new plaque’s been installed beneath it, small and bronze. _Out to war, against the world_ , it reads.

But Bucky Barnes isn’t against the world now, not anymore. He’s got his world right beside him. Someone he’s been waiting for his whole life, someone who’s been waiting for him _his_ whole life. And he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> pHEW that was a journey!!! this took me around a month to write and i really hope u enjoyed it,,, i'll probably be writing a clintnat follow-up fic in the same universe that fills in the little holes because u know how much i love them. n e ways have a good day--unless ur one of my friends!! now listen up bitches if u wanna be let inside my google doc of comments i need to make sure you didnt cheat and u read the fic so after youre done dm me the code word that is _the floor number steve and bucky met skye on_. okay. got it? dm me the number and ill add u to the doc!! okay that is all happy belated birthday to ariel!! [here's my obligatory self promo link, as usual :)](https://talya-romanova.carrd.co)


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